Edith Louise Starrett Green (January 17, 1910 – April 21, 1987) was an American politician and educator from Oregon. She was the second Oregonian woman to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and served a total of ten terms, from 1955 to 1974, as a Democrat. She is known for advancing women's issues, education, and social reform; for example, she played an instrumental role in passing the 1972 Equal Opportunity in Education Act, better known as Title IX.

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She was born Edith Louise Starrett in Trent, South Dakota. Her family moved to Oregon in 1916, where she attended schools in Salem, attending Willamette University from 1927 to 1929. She worked as a schoolteacher and advocate of education in 1929, married Arthur N. Green in 1930, and left school to begin a family.[1]

Throughout her ten terms as a representative, Green focused on women's issues, education, and social reform. In 1955 Green proposed the Equal Pay Act, to ensure that men and women were paid equally for equal work. The bill was signed into law eight years later. Other significant legislation that she introduced included the Alaska Mental Health Enabling Act of 1956, which reformed the mental health care system of the then Alaska Territory; the Library Service Bill, which provided access to libraries for rural communities; the Higher Education Facilities Act of 1963, which Lyndon Johnson called "the greatest step forward in the field since the passage of the Land-Grant Act of 1862",[1] and the Higher Education Act of 1965 and 1967. Green's commitment to education earned her epithets like “the Mother of Higher Education” and "Mrs. Education".[4][5]

Green is probably most noted for her work helping to develop the legislation that was to become Title IX, now-called the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act. The law prohibited sex discrimination in federally funded educational institutions. In the late 1960s, after noting that while programs existed to keep boys in school but no similar programs existed for girls, Green sought to correct this inequity.[5] She helped to introduce a higher education bill that contained provisions regarding gender equity in education.[6] The hearings on this bill, working together with fellow Representative Patsy Mink and Senator Birch Bayh, eventually resulted in the passage of Title IX in 1972.[7]

Green herself had been considered a contender for U.S. Senate several times, most notably in 1966, against eventual winner Mark Hatfield.[9] She declined each time, however, to turn her House seniority for junior status in the Senate.[1]